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Paul Buchheit: Serendipity finds you

paulbuchheit.blogspot.com

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Re: Paul Buchheit: Serendipity finds you

#11

Post by gruseom »

michael_nielsen wrote: post #3

A closely related story, from HN user kenjackson ( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1647146 ): "How long will you need to find your truest, most productive niche? This I cannot predict, for, sadly, access to a podium confers no gift of prophecy. But I can say that however long it takes, it will be time well spent. I am reminded of a friend from the early 1970s, Edward Witten. I liked Ed, but felt sorry for him, to…

Wow, thank you so much for reviving that post! I had not seen that story before. It is a classic.

Re: Paul Buchheit: Serendipity finds you

#12

Post by d4ft »

usrusrusr wrote: post #7
raganwald wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even though I haven't been "successful" with startups (yet), I feel I've been very lucky. Anybody else feel that way?

If you tie your success to only how well a company is going to do, you are setting up for fail (And feeling unlucky, and so slightly pissed off at work.). There are too many external factors deciding that. I measure my success in many ways. 1. Do I havea loving family. Check. 2. Do I have fulfilling hobbies. Check. 3. Do I have enough money to fulfill my responsibilities and hobby, doing things I love. Check. 4. Do I…

This reminds me of portfolio theory in finance: as long as your goals are diverse enough, generally you will track the market (i.e. how life is going generally). That being said, I think the most successful business people are those that really closely tie their happiness with the success of the company (Steve Jobs, I think, is a good example).

Re: Paul Buchheit: Serendipity finds you

#13

Post by joshstrike »

Meh. Lucky people always love to talk about how easy it is if you just do what they did - though they usually have a hard time explaining exactly what it was that they did.

How does he explain all the happy-go-lucky young fliberdygibbits who ended up serendipitously taking their first job offer in 1998 from Pets.com? Or those of us who labored under the impression that "as soon as DataPower takes off" there'll be bonuses raining from the sky?

Right time, right place. Right age group. Right skill set. 25% of the above are things you can plan for.

Re: Paul Buchheit: Serendipity finds you

#15

Post by raganwald »

d4ft wrote: post #12
usrusrusr wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you tie your success to only how well a company is going to do, you are setting up for fail (And feeling unlucky, and so slightly pissed off at work.). There are too many external factors deciding that. I measure my success in many ways. 1. Do I havea loving family. Check. 2. Do I have fulfilling hobbies. Check. 3. Do I have enough money to fulfill my responsibilities and hobby, doing things I love. Check. 4. Do I…

This reminds me of portfolio theory in finance: as long as your goals are diverse enough, generally you will track the market (i.e. how life is going generally). That being said, I think the most successful business people are those that really closely tie their happiness with the success of the company (Steve Jobs, I think, is a good example).

> Steve Jobs

If you feel he's a good role model, then what do we make of him being cast out of Eden by his own board, and then having NeXT going basically nowhere until Apple begged him to come back and bought the company for its OS and as a talent acquisition?

I suspect he's been happier in a certain sense when his actions have been validated by the market, but at the same time, I strongly suspect he has certain other motivations that drive him and he's happy when he acts in harmony with those motivations. The marketplace validating his work is probably just icing on the cake.

That's all just speculation I pulled out of my Ass, of course!

Re: Paul Buchheit: Serendipity finds you

#16

Post by raganwald »

joshstrike wrote: post #13

Meh. Lucky people always love to talk about how easy it is if you just do what they did - though they usually have a hard time explaining exactly what it was that they did. How does he explain all the happy-go-lucky young fliberdygibbits who ended up serendipitously taking their first job offer in 1998 from Pets.com? Or those of us who labored under the impression that "as soon as DataPower takes off" there'll be bon…

Survivor bias is the phrase that comes to mind. The other one is "notoriety bias:" Only the stories with a spectacular ending get made into movies, so you read about the big successes and the big failures, but nothing in between.

Re: Paul Buchheit: Serendipity finds you

#17

Post by paul »

joshstrike wrote: post #13

Meh. Lucky people always love to talk about how easy it is if you just do what they did - though they usually have a hard time explaining exactly what it was that they did. How does he explain all the happy-go-lucky young fliberdygibbits who ended up serendipitously taking their first job offer in 1998 from Pets.com? Or those of us who labored under the impression that "as soon as DataPower takes off" there'll be bon…

You seem to be missing the point.

There are no guarantees. Ever. Our lives are ruled chance. You can't duplicate my life, but you can create an interesting life of your own.

Re: Paul Buchheit: Serendipity finds you

#18

Post by joshstrike »

raganwald wrote: post #16
joshstrike wrote: post #13

Meh. Lucky people always love to talk about how easy it is if you just do what they did - though they usually have a hard time explaining exactly what it was that they did. How does he explain all the happy-go-lucky young fliberdygibbits who ended up serendipitously taking their first job offer in 1998 from Pets.com? Or those of us who labored under the impression that "as soon as DataPower takes off" there'll be bon…

Survivor bias is the phrase that comes to mind. The other one is "notoriety bias:" Only the stories with a spectacular ending get made into movies, so you read about the big successes and the big failures, but nothing in between.

Yeah, I know. Meanwhile, there's now an industry built on telling children their dreams really can come true if they accrue enough ycombinator karma. Way to harness that aptitude, baby.

edit: yeah, rate me down for telling you what you didn't want to hear. I'm not the one who throws $18k at a time down a well just to get a high school kid to suck up to me and think I'm a god.

Re: Paul Buchheit: Serendipity finds you

#19

Post by pg »

joshstrike wrote: post #13

Meh. Lucky people always love to talk about how easy it is if you just do what they did - though they usually have a hard time explaining exactly what it was that they did. How does he explain all the happy-go-lucky young fliberdygibbits who ended up serendipitously taking their first job offer in 1998 from Pets.com? Or those of us who labored under the impression that "as soon as DataPower takes off" there'll be bon…

I think PB is too consistent to dismiss him as merely lucky. He didn't just happen to be an early employee at Google. He also wrote GMail (which entailed not only a redesign of the email experience, but also was a pretty dramatic evolutionary step in web apps because of its then extreme use of Javascript), built the first version of AdSense, and was the one who came up with "Don't be evil." It's unlikely to be a coincidence.

Nor does he have a hard time explaining what he did. He has spoken several times at Startup School about his approach to solving problems. I've learned a lot from him.

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